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INTERVIEW

Lulu Roman: Hee-Hawing Through
Life

By Julie Blim and Scott RossThe 700 Club

CBN.com
 Who could forget Lulu Roman of the long-running TV
hit Hee Haw? Yet forgotten is exactly how she felt as an orphan
in Dallas, Texas. They say that comediennes often come from very
painful backgrounds -- that they use humor to hide that pain. Lulu
openly shares the story behind her unique brand of humor.

ROSS: When did it strike you that you had some real talent
for show biz?

ROMAN: I never really thought about having talent for
show biz as much as I thought about someone paying attention to
me.

ROSS: Who did?

ROMAN: Buck Owens. He said, 'One of these
days you're going to be a big star, and I'm going to have something
to do with it.' I says, 'Keep talking, cowboy.' (laughs) So when they put together the Hee Haw show, there
were a couple of fellows from Canada that had seen Laugh-in
and thought, 'This could be a good thing. We could do country
music in this and do real well.' So they made a list: one gorgeous
blonde and one gorgeous brunette; one girl next door-type and
one boy next door-type; one fat, dumb man and one fat, dumb woman.
Buck said, 'I got your girl. She's in Dallas!'

ROSS: And you were which one?

ROMAN: I was the gorgeous blonde, of course! (laughs)
He said, 'They're going to do this country and western-type show,
and they're going to call it Hee Haw.' I said, 'Hee what?' He
said, 'Hee Haw, like a donkey.'
I said, 'Sure.' He said, 'There's going to be a lot of money.'
I said, 'Keep talkin'.'

ROSS: Now you're listening, right?

ROMAN: They put me on a big jet plane, and they flew
me to Hollywood, CA. Took me to CBS television studios. The
first person I saw was Carol Burnette. I'll never forget as long
as I live. She met us in the hall and said, 'Shut your mouth,
child. You're fixin' to be one of us.'

ROSS (reporting): Then came the audition. Lulu was high on drugs at the time.

ROSS: The success was almost instantaneous. What did that do to you? All of a sudden, the acceptance
you'd been looking for...

ROMAN: I [almost] missed it because I was so
messed up on drugs.

ROSS: You were wacked when you were doing the show?

ROMAN: Oh yeah, I was... most of the time.

ROSS: Did it eventually cost you?

ROMAN: I ended up getting busted not once, but twice,
for possession of dangerous drugs. It ended up costing me losing
my position on the Hee Haw show for a whole year. In the middle
of that, I found out that I was very much with child.

ROSS: Married at the time?

ROMAN: Nope, not married. I left there very bitter, very
angry, thinking that if there was a God. He certainly didn't love
me because He dumped me.

ROSS: It's His fault.

ROMAN: That's right because I never got to have a Momma.
I never got to have a Daddy.

SCOTT ROSS: Lulu, you grew up in an orphanage, and this was
when you were around 4? Is this your first memories of an
orphanage?

LULU ROMAN: You think you don't have very many memories
of a childhood, but I have vivid memories of September 10, 1950. That was the day I was dropped in an orphans'
home.

ROSS: By whom? Who dropped you off?

ROMAN: My grandmother.

ROSS: Wow. You had to go through rejection and all this
isolation, identity crises, all that kind of stuff. Throwaway
kid?

ROMAN: I think I probably felt it a little harder than
most of them because I was 'the fat kid.' I came in with a thyroid problem, and I got things
like, 'Fatty, fatty, 2 x 4, can't get through the kitchen door.'
I realize now that even then the enemy had plans to speak death
to my spirit.

ROSS: You can flip that off now with humor?

ROMAN: Yeah, I can.

ROSS: But was that part of the defense mechanism.

ROMAN: Oh, yes. It was. I learned very early on that I could use a quick
wit that the Lord had given me to have people laugh with me instead
of at me.

ROSS: Did you have any kind of spiritual input or background
in a school like that or in an orphanage like that?

ROMAN: We had that good ol' religion shoved down our
throats. We were made to memorize the Scriptures.
We were made to learn the songs. I remember
sitting in church, and we were offered things like, 'If you'll
promise you'll never touch a drop of liquor, you can come stand
here.' Bang! Right up there. Never drank. But nobody said, 'If
you'll promise you'll never do drugs '. You stayed until
you either were adopted, or your parents or your family came to
retrieve you. Mine never did, and I never got adopted. They didn't
adopt fat kids.

ROSS: What about that? You would see some of your friends
get adopted and leave, go off to a family. And you're left
standing there. They don't care about the fat kid, the Lulu, who
is dying inside. How did you handle that?

ROMAN: You sat in your closet and you cried. You sat
in the window, and you watched the
cars drive by. You thought, 'If I could just have a Momma or
a Daddy, or a brother or a sister, or a room of my own.' I never
had a bicycle. I never had a puppy. I never had any of those things
that normal people had.

ROSS: How old were you when you got out of the orphanage?

ROMAN: I had just turned 18.

ROSS: So you had your own option then to choose to leave?

ROMAN: Well, no, when you turned 18, bye.

ROSS (reporting): Lulu admits there were many good things
about the orphanage, too. When she left they helped her find a
job at the telephone company.

ROMAN: So I turned into an operator with a very bad mouth
because the first thing I wanted to do was learn how to cuss.

ROSS: What?!

ROMAN: Got it down real good. (laughs)

ROSS: What was that about?

ROMAN: Well, because I spent my whole life listening
to people say, 'Thou shalt not,' and I thought, 'Oh, yes thou
wilt!' (laughs) Everything that they said I couldn't do I did
with gusto, Honey. (laughs) Got fired from that job real quick.

ROSS: Did the drugs help the hole in your heart?

ROMAN: Oh yeah, temporarily. I could get high enough
that I just went into my own little world, and that hurt did not
hurt me anymore. I could just fly and have a wonderful time. I
didn't have to worry about whether anybody saw me and thought
I was ugly or unacceptable or unlovable or unworthy.

ROSS (reporting): The last time Lulu left jail for drug possession, she ran into Diane, who'd grown up in the same orphanage.

ROMAN: She wanted to tell me about Jesus. The first thing
I wanted to do was say, 'Don't try to come at me with that. You
grew up in the same place I did. Don't even try it.' She said,
'Louise, just listen to me. Let me tell you that Jesus is real.
Let me tell you how He's changed my life.'

ROSS (reporting): The love that Lulu saw in Diane was
quite different from the religion of her youth. She agreed to
go church, heard who God really is, and in time, came to know
Jesus as her Savior. And the drugs?

ROMAN: Whenever I got down on my knees and gave my life
to the Lord, in that place, I mean, instantly He took those drugs
away from me.

ROSS: No withdrawal?

ROMAN: Never. Not one second.

ROSS: No cold turkey stuff.

ROMAN: No. Gone. Just gone.

ROSS: Wow. Did the Hee Haw people know that there'd been
a change in you?

ROMAN: They did instantly. (laughs) It changed the way
I looked.

ROSS: Your whole demeanor had changed?

ROMAN: Yeah, the whole demeanor had changed.

ROSS: Did they want you back?

ROMAN: They said, 'Will you come back?' And I said, 'I'll
tell you this: I'll pray about it.'

ROSS (reporting): Lulu did indeed return to Hee Haw and
stayed until the show's close in 1995. Since, she's shared her
testimony widely and recorded gospel albums. Lulu is quite serious
about sharing her humor, her help, and her faith in God.

ROMAN: We have started the Lulu Roman's orphan fund.
I know I can't gather up a ton of these kids and adopt them and
take care of them, but I can make them laugh for a little while.
I can take them to great places and take their minds off of feeling
sad. And that's what I want to do.